Page:Literary studies by Joseph Jacobs.djvu/73

 One fine illustration redeems the essay, however; George Eliot gives as a specimen of a Heinesque lyric Wordsworth's She dwelt among the untrodden ways, the last line of which is exactly in the manner of Heine. For the rest one is surprised at the very ordinary and external character of her criticism. Her mind was clearly constructive, not critical, and it is a fundamental error to suppose that her genius was analytical.

An Address to Working Men, by Felix Holt, and an account of a three-months' stay at Weimar complete the essays. The former repeats at some length the political harangues in the novel. When Mr. Lowe said, 'Come, let us educate our new masters,' George Eliot, in the character of a working man, said, 'Come, let us educate ourselves.' Her intensely conservative feeling comes out strongly in her appeals for the preservation of social order; the notion that society is incarnate history was sufficient to condemn with her any sudden alteration in social relations. The chief point of practical advice in the address is, however, the recognition of the need of culture and opportunities for culture by the masses. Of the account of Weimar it is sufficient to say that it might have been written by any English lady of education.

Attached to these essays are a few Leaves